Who are you again?

When I was in college, I had a professor with 80 plus students in his class every semester, and by the third week of class, everyone sat back with their mouths open while he took role by mumbling each name to himself, glancing up, and nodding towards the corresponding face. He had memorized all of us. I was later a teaching assistant for him and learned his tricks. He watched the students in his class like a hawk. He wrote down details in the first two weeks -about their features, but most importantly, the people in his past that a particular student conjured up in his memory. I, in fact, reminded him so much of someone named Susan that, more than once, he shouted the name once when I stood in his office doorway, before quickly apologizing and correcting himself. He assured me that, once you got to his age -- You've already met every type of person, and it's just a matter of categorizing them accordingly. How strange. But, it seemed to work. He could tell you, within every class, who was friends with who, who was just hoping for a decent passing grade because they were getting married at the end of term, who was struggling with the content and who would pass with an A without studying. He was a sociology professor, and so he was innately interested in people and in categories. Teaching, for him, was the perfect fusion of the two. I wondered at how neat it all was.

I recently saw a woman from a different department at work, a woman I don't interact with much, and I proceeded to have a full conversation with her before walking away and realizing she wasn't the person I thought she was. I suppose, in reflecting about it, the conversation was just vague enough to allow her to respond, perhaps with suspicion, without saying flat out that she had no idea what I was talking about. I asked if she had found a document she was looking for, and then I asked about her trip (a simple "How was your trip?" Everyone goes away every now and then, right?) Perhaps she didn't notice. Perhaps she did and was just being polite. I was lucky I didn't ask her something more direct.

But now I have to think back to Professor Category. I don't seem to be very good at remembering people. I can think of a few occasions in the last year when I've been introduced to someone and they've replied immediately "Oh, we've met before," with me trying to seamlessly change the gesture of holding out my hand for a first-time handshake to some other cool, natural movement. I try and nod like I know. But sometimes I just have no idea. And don't get me started on remembering names.

It seemed a bit too impersonal and sinister, his way of categorizing people. His quip that eventually everyone in your life is just a repeat of someone you've already met. But I guarantee, he remembers everyone who visits him. And, he remains one of the most popular professors at the university. So, here's to a little memory trick. Perhaps next time I begin a job, I'll work a little harder at the categories.

New York luxury

We spent yet another rain-drenched weekend in New York, watching the cat paw at Chinese Checkers and ogling over the Real Housewives of Orange County on my sister's HD tv. We battled our way to a cozy restaurant and a delicious dinner in the Village, huddling under our flimsy umbrellas, hoping that those thin little wires would hold just long enough, and pointing to all those other abandoned umbrellas - we must have seen at least 40 or 50 the whole weekend - that littered the street. Why do we always choose the worst times to go? It just seems to work out that way. The rain was spottier on Sunday. We got out in the morning, to a museum in the Park, through the afternoon, before catching the bus back to Philadelphia. It's the third time H has been to the New York since living in Philadelphia, and the third time the sky has cracked open over the Big Apple and pummeled us with heavy city rain. Eventually we'll catch a nice weekend. Until then, I suppose we'll satisfy ourselves with the decadence of sprawling out on a New York couch and not going out. Because there is something so sumptuously luxurious about it, isn't there?

Adjusting for Spring

My mother wakes up every morning to a tiny, timed bedside light ticking on -- a silent indication that the day is coming before the sun gets too high, and I picture her waking gradually, stretching her arms and blinking her eyes slowly open to a warm glow. This isn't our style. The alarm next to our bed, our own air horn to my mother's peaceful morning light, must be set to NBA-arena volume to get us stirring. This radio has been stuck for some time between stations - a loud, obnoxious morning show with dirty jokes and Lady Gaga music blares at 7 a.m. in between waves of static. We snooze for at least a half-hour, so the sound of it jolting back on every ten minutes might drive our neighbors crazy, if we had any. It's been like this for weeks, and neither of us have bothered to change it. After all, we're not morning people to begin with, not by any means, and anything we wake up to will be on our hit list of worst enemies - might as well be something we already don't care much for.

The weather here is finally changing, and I put on my walking shoes and took small bites out of the city this weekend, one step at a time. Kelly drive was delightfully crowded, and I walked out to the edges of it with a friend, sat on the banks of the Schuylkill and basked in the sun. On Sunday, I walked deep into the city, had a smoothie and went bathing suit shopping. These first few hints of spring's mildness, even if we do have a few more bursts of coat weather, are just so, so sweet. Whenever this time of year rolls around, I find that I'm much more ready and willing to jump out of bed in the morning and face the warm day, the sun, the possibility of a thin cotton dress instead of layers and layers of clothing. Even my trip to work seems a little bit more colorful. And in the next few weeks, after changing the bed-clothes to something lighter and cracking the windows for the first time in months, I just might readjust that radio dial to something pleasant and airy.

Tea time

At a new tea bar in my hometown.

I'm a tea drinker. I start the day with a dark black and a splash of milk, I treat myself to a light green in the early afternoon, and every now and then I return to a sweet cup of Rooibos at night. I'm not a tea researcher, certainly not a tea writer, and by no means a tea expert - I just like the stuff.

This summer I met a Brit at a conference, born and bred, and spent a bit of time with her. When I shook my mug and told her that I was a tea drinker, she cringed. American tea is just awful, she told me. Those little tiny bags...the only way I can stand it is to make a pot using twenty of those damn tea bags. Or loose leaf.

I had never bought loose-leaf until my husband came home with a bag of it for me last week. What a charming idea, I thought. How cozy. How posh. I'll go and buy a nice diffuser, perhaps even a tea pot, and become a real tea drinker who can discern the quality stuff from the corporate grind, who has a little cupboard with glass tea jars lined up and labeled, that will chink with friendly little reminders of their quality when I reach in for the one I want. Yes. This little scene struck me as just the right progression in my tea-drinking education. So, it was only logical to visit the little tea boutique in the city this weekend. I walked there with a friend who has abnormally refined taste buds (I have told her time and again to please become a food writer...she can rattle off comments about tannins, citrus infusions and cedar aromas like no one I've ever met). But, I must admit, after my experience, I'm not sure I'm ready to become a total tea buff. I walked around the store, gingerly cradling glasses and trying my hardest not to knock things over while my friend had a ten-minute conversation with the cashier about the differences between first-flush and second-flush Darjeeling (oh, she explained it to me, but hell if I can remember). I wondered anxiously if I was allowed to take the large tins of loose-leaf down and smell them by myself or if I had to wait for help. I fingered the more bizarre instruments with a furrowed brow before replacing them carefully on the shelf. I walked away with a nice little tea pot, perfect for two cups, and a small steal diffuser, both of which were probably a bit overpriced, but worth it overall for the true tea experience. I felt very smug until I flipped over the tea pot and saw those three little mood-killers that were printed in precise letters on the bottom...Made in China. Ah well. The Chinese do know something about tea at least, don't they?

My new tea pot, trying its hardest to create that cozy tea atmosphere.